How does the calculation work? Knowing that Beatty lost his virginity at nineteen, and that Beatty met his wife, Annette Bening, in 1991, Biskind makes the assumption that Beatty had sex with at least one woman a day for thirty-five years. And this, Biskind, notes, does not count “daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on.”

The biography is unauthorized, and Beatty’s lawyer has already responded, saying the book “contains many false assertions and purportedly quotes Mr. Beatty as saying things he never said.”

The Guardiannotes that Beatty’s number beats that of Don Giovanni’s. The young nobleman “could only claim a lacklustre 2,065, according to Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.” But it doesn’t top Wilt Chamberlain’s claim of 20,000.